Stop keypress event

function onKeyDown(event) {   
  event.preventDefault();
}

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Events/events.html#Events-Event-preventDefault

or

function onsubmit(event) {
  return false;
}

return false to stop events propagation

In opera, you have to use the keypress event to prevent the default actions for keyboard events. keydown works to prevent default action in all browsers but not in opera.

See this long list of inconsistencies in keyboard handling across browsers.

Here I stopped the event bubbling for up/dn/left/right keys:

    $(document).on("keydown", function(e) {
        if(e.keyCode >= 37 && e.keyCode <= 40) {
            e.stopImmediatePropagation();
            return;
        }
    });

I also tried e.preventDefault or event.cancelBubble = true from the answers above, but they had no impact.